From building lathes and circuit boards in the basement to compelling his parents into giving him rides to the local RadioShack for materials, Professor Joseph Barbetta always knew, through middle and high school, that his future would lead him into engineering. Barbetta was hired by Stevens in 1977 when his engineering business, that he still manages today, caught the college’s eye.
Barbetta claimed that he never saw himself becoming a teacher; however, now he finds himself once a week in the classroom setting, teaching different levels of Engineering Design. The rest of the week, he can be spotted at his business, making products for industry, control systems, or monitoring for TV stations.
When asked why he chose to take the job at Stevens, Barbetta simply said, “I loved the creativity of engineering,” and he would be able to help these students be introduced to this exact creativity. Barbetta also added, “A lot of students come undecided but are influenced, by this [Engineering Design] class, to go into engineering.”
Though he is only at Stevens one day a week, Barbetta is full of interesting stories during his time here at the university. At the start of his teaching career, he was shocked when he was told that a student had been throwing rolls of toilet paper out his classroom windows. Surprisingly, this student was able to get away with the events, but, nonetheless, it was a great kick-off to the beginning of this new occupation.
Barbetta is not only filled with compelling stories, but he is also chock-full of advice for the incoming Freshmen of the 2022 class. “Students tend to lose a lot of points due to grading… [they] don’t follow instructions even though the teachers supply a breakdown of what they are looking for,” Barbetta said.
Professor Barbetta is also heavily aware of the stories told about the workload that many students face in college. He ensured that it is not as bad as people make it seem. “[Just] try to stay on top of everything… and don’t procrastinate.”
Furthermore, Barbetta is quick to mention the importance of having good communication with the group during projects. Not only can it help evenly divide the workload, but it can also result in more accuracy to the instructions asked for by the professors.
However, what can students do when they’re not in the classroom? Barbetta takes advantage of his Stevens parking, taking any opportunity he can to spend some time in the nearby city. He even joked, “I can’t discuss the bar scene; I don’t know if freshmen get fakes.”
The professor hopes to be the best teacher he can be in his future at Stevens and potentially sees some students winning some Nobel Prizes during the next few years!
Barbetta had one final piece of advice for the incoming freshmen: be aggressive in reaching out. Some students think that internships or opportunities will just fall into place. Strive for what you want, aggressively, and you might just find yourself in the place you want to be.
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